Balanovska Daria

Born in 1993 in Ukraine, Daria Balanovska is a director of photography, filmmaker, experimental cinematographer, editor, and musician. Early on, she was introduced to photography, and at age 16, she became a member of the photo department at the Academy of Sciences for minors in Crimea. She entered the National Film Institute (VGiK) in Moscow under Mikhail Agranovich. Her thesis film received the special Vadim Yusov Prize from the Russian Guild of Cinematographers. She draws inspiration from the work of Roger Deakins and Emmanuel Lubezki.

She collaborates with musicians and artists on music videos and has worked on several projects with the Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow. Several of her films as director of photography have won awards (The Observer, 2017; Asia Bareeva Fashion Film, 2018; I’ll say it first, 2019; The Summer Ends Soon, 2022) and been selected for prestigious fashion film festivals like the L.A. Fashion Film Festival and SHORT to the Point 2020. In 2022, as director and cinematographer of The Underbody Poem, she won the award for best underwater cinematography at the New York Cinematography Awards and the European Cinematography Awards 2022. She is a member of the Agency of Artists in Exile.